Wednesday, 14 December 2011

Bloody cyclists! Tough luck if you get killed. Essentially, today's Conservative position on cycle safety. Do we want political party that supports laissez-faire on the roads? Your fault if you get killed?

Pictured left, a cyclist in the middle of the road. The road in question is Queen Victoria Street, just off the Blackfriars northern junction.

Bloody cyclist! Why's he in the middle of the road?

Well, that's because the junction has been designed that way. Just ahead of the cyclist, the road narrows significantly. So he has no other choice.

The taxi driver right behind him must be getting royally pi88ed off that he can't get past. That's because he's also had to sit behind the bike all the way through the junction. Again, because of the way the junction is designed. Understandable, frankly.

This week, I've now had a number of black cab drivers contact me on twitter saying it's time to make space for cyclists, that we shouldn't be shoved between two HGVs or buses. They probably also want us out their way at junctions like Blackfriars above. And good on them, frankly. The road has been designed to wind up that cab driver as much as possible by using the cyclist as a kind of rolling speed hump. It's a travesty of road design.

Another 'bike lane' designed under Mayor's 'smoothing traffic' policy.
Conservatives implied today this is good
design as it makes you safer on a bike. How exactly?

But the London Conservatives are sticking with the line that the Mayor's 'smoothing the traffic flow' policy is a good thing. Andrew Boff, who has otherwise been quite sensible on this stuff, even stood up to state (with no evidence) that it actually made cycling safer. He tweeted later 'smoothing isn't speeding'. No-one's talking about speeding. We're talking about road designs. Like this one on the left. This is a bike lane designed to maximise traffic flow. Problem is the only place to cycle is between the HGVs. Or just not at all, to get off and walk.

Smoothing is about stacking traffic into giant queues like this. It's about trying to shove cyclists into the queue along with everyone else. That's the exact same situation at Bow roundabout. It's the same at Kings Cross. There's plenty of space for a bike lane but it's not going to happen, it seems.

So, the Blackfriars design has now alienated a) cyclists b) pedestrians c) a charity representing older and disabled Londoners d) is starting to get on the nerves of cab drivers too.

You start to wonder why the Mayor and his party are sticking to the Blackfriars design, let alone the overall policy. Do most Londoners want to vote for someone who thinks that old people shouldn't be able to cross the road? Or that people who get killed on the streets brought it on themselves, possibly because they didn't have their 'wits about them' (quoting Boris's suggestion that you just need to keep your wits about you and suggesting it's fine to take your kids through Elephant & Castle on a bike, let alone to cross the road here).

I've met several of the Conservative London Assembly Members. They're mostly (not all) smart, switched on, and wanting to do good. But they're painting themselves into a corner. Not as the 'nasty party'. It's more like laissez-faire gone mad. Your fault if you get killed. Nothing to do with us.

I disagree with laissez-faire on the roads. It kills people. I think deep-down they do too. I hope so.